Last week, Rajiv Kochhar, brother-in-law of ICCI Bank MD Chanda Kochhar, was detained(हिरासत में लिया/रोका हुआ) at the Mumbai airport and brought to CBI’s Mumbai office for questioning. There was high drama, the kind the media loves.But this particular aspect of the CBI’s ongoing investigation into alleged(कथित तौर पर/थोपा हुआ) irregularities(अनियमितताओं/अव्यवस्था)in ICCI Bank raise critical questions—do investigators need to humiliate persons they need to question and what is the impact(प्रभाव) of such entirely(संपूर्णतया/समूचापन) avoidable excesses on investigators’ credibility? Any person CBI or any other agency wants to talk to can simply be informed to stay put in the country for a specified(विस्तृत/शर्त रखा हुआ) time period.That doesn’t appear to have been the case here. Of course, detention is justified should a person attempt to leave the country after being notified. But what’s the investigative benefit from detaining a person at the departure gate and thenhauling(पार करना/खींचते से लाना) him downtown when he could have simply been asked to come to the CBI office? One suspects(संदिग्धों) the main benefit is media headlines that do not question the procedure and instead suggest investigators are on the ball.

A detective(जासूसी) can, however, be on the ball and not commit(प्रतिबद्ध/सौंपना) a grave procedural foul. It’s not fair play when government agencies assume every person of interest in a case is a flight risk, that they needn’t be given the courtesy(के सौजन्य से) of being notified about travel restrictions, and further that a media circus around an entirely avoidable airport detention is proof of highflying detective work. True, Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi fled the country to escapeinterrogation(पूछताछ). But government agencies of all kinds should take the blame for that. In Mallya’s case especially, there was plenty of time for agencies to act. Therefore, the answer is better coordination(बेहतर समन्वय), not ham-fisted attempts to demonstrate that people can be detained at airports. Mallya and Modi represent investigative failures that can’t be addressed by investigators abandoning common sense and common courtesy.